


Coward

by DaylilyAntares



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: Angry Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Angst, M/M, Spock is frustratingly unemotional, and barely reacts to anything, during Star Trek 1: The Motion Picture, for the kohlinar, rated for language, which super upsets McCoy who is very mad he left
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-01-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:00:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22350715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaylilyAntares/pseuds/DaylilyAntares
Summary: McCoy is furious about how Spock left for Vulcan without saying goodbye to him or Jim and confronts him about it. Prior mcspirk.
Relationships: James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy, James T. Kirk/Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, James T. Kirk/Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy/Spock, spirk and mckirk only mentioned
Comments: 13
Kudos: 111





	Coward

Spock returned to the Enterprise. That wasn't unexpected, but the way he did bothered McCoy. He walked onboard, in his robe with his stone set face, and when McCoy showed up to give him the barest compliment, that he was actually happy to see him- he didn't even acknowledge him. As if the first time they saw each other in years, face to face, meant nothing. That he didn't deserve a greeting or a hello. He wasn't asking for a goddamn howdy, but a simple nod, and "Doctor", would've been just fine. But that hadn't happened, and he remembered how mad he was all over again.  


Jim wasn't mad, not a bit. He was starstruck, and just thankful Spock had come back at all. Spock's departure had been harder on him than it was on McCoy. McCoy was used to being left. He'd drank through it and held Jim when he sobbed into his shoulder about the hole that Spock left in both of them, and drank some more. But it had gotten better. McCoy never forgot, sure, but he wasn't thinking about him constantly. But then he saw the look on Jim's face. That devastatingly starstruck, love drunk smile. Oh.   


McCoy wasn't going to ruin it for Jim. He wouldn't go after Spock in front of him, wouldn't chew him out or shout, he'd keep it private. Whenever Jim wasn't looking, he'd watch Spock's face, for any flicker of emotion. Any eyebrow twitch or tiny pull at the corner of his mouth. Didn't see any. And it made him furious. Spock had left them to go get rid of his feelings and came back like it was nothing. He knew he had to talk to him. He told Jim to send Spock down when he had a minute, that he wanted to look him over to make sure he was in full health after whatever the hell he did trying to turn into a husk. Jim agreed. Of course Spock would've said it wasn't necessary, but it was Doctor's orders, and he showed up. When he stepped into the sickbay McCoy just looked at him before tilting his head with a jerk for him to follow him into his office.  


He activated the lock on the door behind them and turned on the satisfactory soundproofing installed. He went and stood behind his desk and pinched the loose skin between his eyebrows, arms crossed.

"So. You're back."

"Correct." A moment of heavy silence. That was it? Just correct?

"Why." More silence, another moment.

"I couldn't find what I was looking for. I had no reason to continue."

McCoy sighed in a harsh exhale, and looked up. Spock stood there in front of his desk with his arms tucked behind him, totally upright and face blank. He was staring straight ahead but glanced back down to McCoy and made eye contact with him. There was almost nothing in those eyes. Shields up.

"What, not a perfect enough Vulcan to go full husk?" There was a moment of silence again. It was too quiet. There was too much time between responses. It was still hardly anything, but it was there. He knew him well enough even after all these years.

"The intention of the kohlinar is to purge oneself of all emotion and embracing total logic. I do not know what you mean by husk."

"So you couldn't do it?"

"Negative. What I was looking for was not there."

"Where was it then?" McCoy didn't dare hope it was him and Kirk. Or hell, even just Kirk, he'd take. 

"I believe it may lie within the cloud of energetic gas we seek." Oh. Oh that wasn't what he wanted to hear at all.

"So it has nothing to do with Jim. Nothing. No conflict over whether or not you want to stop feeling? Feeling for him? For us?" Spock took another too long moment.

"I believe i will find what I am looking for in the entity we will be facing."

"Are you _kidding_ me? Seriously. I know you're horrible at it but tell me you're fucking joking." McCoy ran a hand over his face, features tightening. "Did we mean nothing? Did leaving us mean _nothing?"_

Another silence.

"...Leonard-" McCoy slammed his hands on his desk, not looking at him, and shouted.

"Don't you _DARE_ call me _THAT_ after FIVE YEARS." The silence was longer this time.

"...Doctor. You and the Captain-"

"When did he become the Captain again Spock? He's _JIM_. He's _BEEN, JIM."_ McCoy still had his hands on his desk and was staring at Spock, not breaking eye contact with him, daring him to look away. Those eyes were still dulled. Still emotionless. It made him furious.

"But you wouldn't know that, would you. You wouldn't know if he decided he preferred James. He didn't. He still prefers Jim. But you still wouldn't know that, would you? Do you have any fucking idea what you put us through?"

Spock simply stared back. His face was empty. It was almost enough to make McCoy more sad than he was angry. Not enough though. McCoy came around in front of his desk, steps too loud, too heavy, hands clenched into fists. He saw Spock tilt his head the slightest fraction down to keep looking at him, and McCoy had to look up. His voice was venomous.

"You didn't even say goodbye." Another moment of quiet, but McCoy didn't give him the chance.

"You decided you needed to get rid of your feelings and you _left._ You took your goddamn belongings and fucked off to Vulcan to turn yourself into a machine. Did we mean so little you didn't want to see us before you left?" It almost looked like Spock was going to say something. But McCoy decided he was going to be selfish, for once. He cut him off before he opened his mouth.

"Is _t'hy'la_ just a word to you?"

At this, practiced eyes could catch the way Spock stiffened. Just a little, like he'd set his jaw and fixed his posture by the tiny amount it needed to be. The word had come out of McCoy's mouth like melted butter. Like he'd never stopped saying it, for all those years, pronunciation perfect. 

_"T'hy'la? Ashayam, ashalik, adun?_ Did that mean _anything_ to you? Or are you so heartless after what you did you can't remember how you felt about us." McCoy didn't look away, but it almost seemed like Spock wanted to. 

"You left us because you were _scared._ You were a fucking coward. You felt fear. I don't want to hear _shit_ about how Vulcan's can't feel fear, because you _AREN'T, VULCAN._ You're half _HUMAN,_ Spock. And you were SCARED of us. To SEE us. You goddamn lily-livered-"

He had to take a moment and look down, breath shuddering through him, fingers uncurling and curling. There was a pink quality to his face, but it wasn't a blush so much as an angry stain of emotion. He looked back up at him, and as observant as Spock was, he didn't miss the beginnings of a wet shine in his eyes. 

"Do you know how bad you hurt Jim? Or should I say your _Captain_ , or goddamn _Admiral._ Do you know how many nights I held him, while he cried? How many bottles we emptied trying to fucking forget you? Course you don't. Because you. Weren't. There."

McCoy shook his head, jerkily as if trying to shake something off. His hands came up, and uncurled and he shoved Spock, who offered no resistance, and stepped back with the force towards the wall behind him. The lack of resistance just infuriated McCoy further. He pushed him again and Spock's back hit the wall, with the shorter, much more emotional doctor standing almost too close, eyes damp and mouth a thin angry line, hands actually trembling faintly.

"You broke his damn heart worse than _anyone._ You should be damn proud of yourself, that's not an easy thing to do. James, T. Kirk, is one of the most loving, compassionate, human people I've ever known, and you _brok_ e him. How long did you think it took for him to get over you? A month? A year? Two years? He's still not fucking over you Spock. He still loves you. But you know that, don't you."

The look in McCoy's eyes was hollow and full of angry fire despite the chill of blue irises. 

"He kissed you, didn't he. He's already been on you, he's already held onto you and kissed you and _cried._ And you didn't apologize even then. Just held him and let him feel, when you won't. I know you know what you must have done to Jim, just-"

McCoy shook his head and turned away, steady surgeon's hands in shaking fists.

"Did you ever consider how I fucking felt? Me, not Jim. _Me._ I _loved_ you Spock. I still, love you. And I _HATE_ it!" He slammed his fists on his desk again, curling over it, and his breaths came in rough shudders, fingertips digging into his palms. Salted tears hit his desk, Spock could hear them. One, then two. He straightened up and turned, shouting in Spock's face, who moved further away the tiny amount he could, trying to get some distance between himself and McCoy's flaming emotional distress.

"You didn't even _consider_ what I felt, did you! Thinking I'd be fine, that I'd take care of Jim? I'd get through it, I've had people leave me before, you know that. I thought you were fucking _better_ than Jocelyn, can you believe that? At least you didn't fucking _CHEAT_ on me first. Unless there's _more_ you want to tell me?"

Spock tried to say something. He opened his mouth. And closed it. McCoy grabbed his arm and yanked it out from behind him, grabbed him by the forearm and slammed it against the wall beside him. Spock's other hand fell to his side, and McCoy stared him in the eyes as he let his hand crawl upwards, until he pressed it, palm to palm with Spock's, and laced their fingers together. Spock shuddered. There were another two tears clinging to the paths left over his face, but no more were coming. 

"Did you think for a second how it would make _me_ feel? _Me?_ You damned coward." His voice was still raw and broken and he squeezed Spock's hand, who was struggling, intensely, to keep his shields up. But Leonard McCoy was anything but emotionless, and Spock gave up hesitantly. The avalanche of intensity that was an emotional McCoy flooded into him, Spock's face tightened visibly with tension, almost pain. McCoy stared at him, eyes heavy with unshed tears, and did nothing but feel, as loud as he could. It lurched and boiled inside him and poured between them. 

Spock, hadn't entirely expected, the depth of McCoy's feelings, when it left him nearly dizzy. It was heavy, like a concrete weight in his skull. There was fury, so much fury, but the fury mixed into a deep, empty sadness. A hollow feeling like one hadn't eaten for days beyond one's tolerance.

The intense loss, the grief. The defensive, protective, desperation to keep both of them safe from Spock like a wild animal's fight or flight. That hollow feeling prevailed with the knowledge that McCoy had tried to fill that hole in himself with scotch, bourbon, whiskey, wine, and anything else he could try to stick there only for it to drip out and leave him empty inside again. And under that, the boiling, deepest layers of Leonard McCoy, was love. An ache. That hollow ache again. Longing.

An overwhelming surge of deep, tearful love that he'd tried to get rid of, to stuff down and ignore. It was a hot and intense love, and a stretched, taut, constrictive desperate yearning. He wanted Spock. He never stopped wanting him. He couldn't, stop wanting Spock. The man who broke his heart for the second time in his life, worse than the first. The man who had whispered _ashayam_ in the darkness of their quarters, who had pressed two fingers over the curve of his shoulder in the morning before sickbay shift. The man who's embrace was solid and safe and full of want he couldn't say.

The man who made Jim crumble to pieces after leaving him, without a goodbye. The coward. The man who hurt him, hurt Jim. Who he wanted desperately to kiss with all the anger and enthusiasm he had in him. It was enough to take Spock's breath from him, and left him frozen with it all.

McCoy watched his face tighten and his grip twitch. After enough time, he pulled his hand away, hesitating only a breath away from Spock's fingers. The two, pressed together, fully capable of pressing a Vulcan kiss to his fingers. But he pulled away, even though a flash of want arced between them. He scrubbed the heel of his hand over his eyes and stepped back, looking up at Spock. 

"I'm going to go grab something from a storage closet to restock, and when i get back, I better not see you here, or _anywhere_ in this damn sickbay. Understood?

"... Yes, Doctor."

"Good." McCoy stalked to the door and deactivated the soundproofing and the lock, looking at him one more time with poison in his eyes.

"Get the _fuck_ out of my office."

He stormed off and left completely, leaving Spock winded, still standing in his office, before he gathered his composure back- straightened himself up, and left, back stiff and face as flat as before.

**Author's Note:**

> i have feelings


End file.
